by Mike Truk
Cerys narrowed her blue eyes. “True.”
“I’m looking to continue that trend. You’ve been with me since the beginning, Cerys. You’ve seen what kind of person I am. You’ve been instrumental in our success.”
“Is this your official recruitment speech?” She pushed off the bedpost and uncrossed her arms. “What are you going to do if it doesn’t work? Force me to join you with your powers?”
“I already said I wouldn’t.”
“You’re a king troll, Kellik.” Her tone was bleak. “In Carneheim they still perform street plays about their fall. Even after all these centuries, echoes of their depravity ring down to us. You’re a king troll. I can’t wrap my head around that.”
Pogo shifted in his seat. “To be precise, he is half a king troll. Though I can’t help but wonder as to the normal methods of procreation employed by his father’s kind: do they always pair with a human, or do they pair with each other? Can they -”
“Pogo,” I said.
“Ahem. Yes. Apologies.”
Tamara reached out and placed a hand on my knee. “Cerys. You know who I am, who I was, at any rate. The order I served, and the power I still wield.”
Cerys glanced at Tamara’s hand on my knee then back up to her. “Yes?”
“I have healed Kellik more times now than anyone else in our company. And the majority of those times were before I began struggling to refrain from healing his soul. The White Sun has already affected him. He is not who he might have been if left to grow into his powers alone. The influence of the White Sun guides his thoughts, affects his morals. This is uncomfortable to talk about, but his actions thus far are in large part because of that healing. Kellik himself has said how the old him wouldn’t have cared about Wargiver or any of the issues he took up since his fall.”
“What are you saying?” Cerys shifted her weight uncomfortably. “That you’ve neutralized the inherent evil in him?”
Tamara gave an unhappy shrug. “Perhaps? I don’t know. Nobody does, not any more. That lore is long lost. But his actions. His care for the abused. No king troll would act that way.”
I remained still, watching Cerys. Glad for the first time to have had Tamara fuck with my very sense of self.
“True,” said Cerys reluctantly. “I’ve seen him… I can’t deny that he’s shown admirable qualities.”
It was my turn to laugh. “What an endorsement. I want that on my tombstone. ‘It could not be denied that he showed admirable qualities.’”
Cerys didn’t smile. “But as he grows in power, who’s to say he won’t change back to his old ways?”
Tamara glanced at me. “I don’t know. But I’m here. I can… monitor him, I suppose. Check those inclinations if they arise with more healing. Kellik?”
I rubbed at my jaw. “Fuck me. I’d hoped for no more of that. But!” I raised a hand to cut off Cery’s protests. “If it sets your mind at ease? If it means you’ll join me again in doing what’s right? Fine. Anytime you think I’m acting… off… you can ask Tamara to check in on me. And if I refuse? Then you’ll know right there and then it’s time to put a crossbow bolt in the back of my head.”
Pogo raised a finger. “This calls for a contract.”
“No, Pogo,” said Cerys. “We don’t need this in writing. Because Kellik’s right. The moment he refuses to go along with this verbal agreement we’ll all know what he’s become. So yes. I’ll come with you. I’ll follow your lead. On the one condition that you are always willing to let Tamara check the nature of your soul. And if Tamara refuses? I’ll assume you’ve suborned her, and that will also count as a disqualification.”
I hesitated. Could I count on Tamara always being willing to back me up? This was no idle threat from Cerys. If she decided I needed a bolt in the back of the neck, her Crimson Noose training would see it done.
“Deal,” I said.
Cerys blinked, as if surprised I’d agreed. “Deal?”
“Deal. So. You in?”
“I - yes. I suppose I am.”
“Very impressive,” said Pogo. “I just lost my wager with Iris.”
I turned to stare at him. “Iris wagered on this outcome?”
“Not in so many words. But she also didn’t decline the wager when I proposed it. To be honest, I’m not sure she was paying attention. But alas, I am nothing if not scrupulous with my bets. I’ll pay her the three copper.”
“Three copper,” said Cerys, lip curling. “That’s how much you bet on the outcome of my loyalty.”
“To be fair,” said Pogo, “Kellik has left the Mailed Fist with almost no funds.”
“Welcome back, Cerys.” I smiled at her, a sincere expression of my simple happiness. “You had me worried there.”
“I’m still worried,” said Cerys. “You’re still a king troll. I grew up being spooked by stories of your kind. You’re the monster in the dark, Kellik. You’re the tyrant upon the bloody throne. You’re the reason humanity and other species toiled in a dark age that lasted untold centuries. Yes, I’ll work with you, but don’t think we’re back to where we were. I’ll be watching you. Please don’t give me a reason to regret this decision.”
I didn’t know what to say. All I could do was nod.
“I’m glad you’re feeling better.” Cerys made her way to the cabin door. “Good night, everyone.” And she stepped out.
“I, too, shall seek some restorative sleep.” Pogo slid off the chair. “I am remarkable adroit at interpreting social dynamics, and can sense that you two would appreciate some time alone. Please. Enjoy yourselves. Good night.” And he, too, stepped outside.
Tamara was blushing furiously when she turned back to me. “Enjoy yourselves? Adroit at social dynamics?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Have you noticed how he always bets against me?”
Tamara curled a lock of brown hair behind her ear. “And how he always loses?”
“There’s a lesson in there somewhere.”
“Mmm,” said Tamara, and eyed me speculatively.
“Thank you.” I took her hand. Squeezed it. “For being there for me. For believing in me. For, ah, cleansing my evil king troll soul against my will so that I can now merit a little trust from my friends.”
She smiled. “You’re welcome. Here. I’ll take your tray with me.”
“You’re going to go?”
Tamara had already half risen, but paused, eyes widening. “I assumed…?”
“Stay.” I pulled her back down. “I mean, if you want to.”
“Stay?” She sat once more on the edge of the bed. And suddenly blushed. “I, ah, am not sure if we should… I mean - I know Yashara was here earlier, and that’s not -”
It was my turn to blush. “That’s not what I meant, exactly. I just, well.” And like that my tongue felt like a block of wood. Tamara was studying me, her brown eyes lively and bright.
“Let me try again,” I said. “I’d appreciate your company tonight. If you don’t mind. Maybe that makes me sound like an asshole? It probably makes me sound like an asshole. But… these past few days - well, the days during which I was awake - were kind of rough. And learning about my heritage, hearing Cerys say those words - I’m still dealing.”
Tamara reached out and brushed my cheek with the back of her fingers. “I can’t imagine.”
“So, yeah. This is my incredibly smooth way of asking if you’d like to just spend the night with me. As a friend. Someone whose company makes me feel better. By the Hanged God’s ashen asshole I’m fucking this up.”
“No,” said Tamara. She picked up the tray, set it on the table, and then came back to lie down on the mattress beside me, her head on my shoulder, one hand resting on my chest. “You’re not.”
“Oh.” Her hair smelled of lavender. I shifted a fraction of an inch beneath her to get more comfortable, and moved my arm around so that it curled about her shoulders. “Good.”
“Mmm,” she murmured. “Agreed.”
We lay there in silenc
e. The ship rose and fell as it cut through the waves. I heard distant calls of sailors doing sailor things. And holding Tamara, my nose close to her hair so I could breathe in her scent, her head warm on my shoulder, her presence close and comforting by my side, I eventually drifted back into sleep, certain, for the first time in what felt like forever, that the odds were finally shifting in my favor.
Chapter 6
Though I’d been warned, I was still surprised at how long it took Port Lusander to come into view once we’d arrived. With sails trimmed we drifted before the wind along the coast, an air of pregnant expectancy hanging over the sailors. I stood at the railing with the others and watched the land slide by, unimpressed by the dour nature of the coastline: heavy undergrowth that grew right up to the water, thick and dark, without any hint of what lay beyond.
No beach, no break in the foliage. Just a mass of roots that sank into the saltwater as if it were fresh, the trees growing so closely together they formed an indistinguishable mass.
“That looks inviting,” said Cerys, handing the telescope she’d borrowed from Maestria over to Yashara.
“It’s not,” said Iris, voice calm and distant. “Beyond those trees lies endless miles of swamp. Channels of water that shift with the currents. Trees bound in ropes of moss that reach for bare skin. Mosquitoes as large as a gold coin that try incessantly to drink your tears. The occasional hills that rise from it all are said to be ancient barrows dating back to the time of the king trolls; those who dig their way in almost never return.”
“Like I said.” Cerys screwed her face in distaste. “Inviting.”
I stared morosely at the endless green coast. Here and there I thought I could see a dark opening where a rowboat might force an entrance, but only if its rowers were to duck their heads and force their way under the low canopy. “And Port Lusander is built in the center of this mess?”
“No,” said Iris. “I could attempt to describe it, but you shall soon see with your own eyes.”
“How are you doing?” I asked, rolling on my hip to consider her. “With returning home, that is? You all right?”
“All right?” She considered the words as if unsure what state might constitute being ‘all right.’ “I suppose so. I am excited, and the elevated rate of my heart indicates that I am nervous as well. It shall be a bitter-sweet homecoming, for I know this can only be a temporary visit. So yes. I suppose I am ‘all right.’”
“Good,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
“Up ahead,” said Yashara, telescope pointed past the prow. “A break in the trees. There’s fog lying over the water, however. I can’t make out much.”
A cry broke out from the crow’s nest. “Fish hut to port!”
“Fish hut?” I asked.
“Where the lampetramen await new ships,” said Iris. Her smile became almost coquettish. “Oh, you will be surprised and most probably disgusted. I am looking forward to watching your faces when you see them.”
“Lampetramen,” I said. “They live in this… fish hut?”
“I see it,” said Yashara. “It’s a single-story home built of… limestone? A strange-looking white rock. Right out on the water. Is it on stilts?”
I leaned over the railing and peered ahead. Yashara was right; the tree line peeled away, receding out of sight suddenly, only to be replaced by a bank of fog that hid everything beyond. Before it all arose a small square house, incongruously situated right out on the open water. Waves lapped at its walls. No light shone within its rough square windows. Nobody stood upon its flat roof. I’d have thought it abandoned were it not for the way everyone was staring at it so intently.
“Brace the sails,” shouted Samel, “easy now, into the wind.”
Sailors rushed to the ropes that connected the yards to the sides of the ship and under Samel’s directions hauled on them, turning the sails so that they began to sag as they went from being before the wind to oblique. The ship began to slow, and at another of Samel’s cries sailors in the rigging hauled up the canvas so that we slowed even further as we drifted close to the fish hut, and once we were within a score of yards, the anchor was lowered and we came to a stop.
The silence was eerie. I waited, one hand on the railing, watching the limestone house, waiting for some sign of these lampetramen. But nobody appeared in the doorway. Maestria descended to the main deck, Jonas by her side, and marched up to the railing a few yards away from me to gaze with hands on her hips at the iron gray waters before us.
Nobody spoke. I saw more than one sailor make the sign of the Hallowed Oak or kiss their whale bone talismans of Blind Fortuna. The ship creaked as it slowly turned to align with the wind once more, held at the stern by the anchor while the last of the sails were furled by the sailors above.
“There,” whispered Cerys, and I saw ripples spread from a ghastly conical, human-sized head that emerged from the still waters. It was a fleshy pink at the tip, a delicate hue that gradated to a slimy fish belly white by the time it reached the lower half of its face, and I saw to my horror that it had no eyes whatsoever, just that expanse of near gelatinous flesh that was pockmarked with a score of small holes in concentric arcs. But it was the lower half that gave me chills; it had no nose, just two neat oval holes punched into its broad upper lip or fish bone mustache that flared down the sides of its mouth. When it spoke, I saw an inch-long ridge of striated shell emerging from its upper gums, but nothing else in its otherwise unnervingly large mouth.
“Greetings,” it hissed wetly. “You seek passage to Port Lusander?”
Other heads emerged around it; each of them exactly identical to the first, and gleaming with the fresh, raw colors of a large fish.
“Greetings!” Maestria’s voice was bold and broke the otherwise ghostly air of the scene. “I am Maestria, captain of the Bonegwayne, and do indeed seek safe passage. Is Icthysanch amongst your number? He guided me the last time I was here.”
“He is not,” hissed another lampetraman. “Enough of us are present to guide you in now. Send a boat over to the office to sign the papers and deposit your payment and we shall proceed.”
“Very well! I shall do so immediately. You have my thanks.” Maestria turned to Jonas and a few other sailors. “Lower the jolly boat. Jonas, fetch the funds. I mean to be back and navigating the maze within the hour.”
The lampetramen sank back into the ocean without a sound. I shuddered. “Why do we need them?”
“Port Lusander’s bay is guarded by a maze of coral,” said Iris, voice soft as if recounting a fairy tale from her childhood. “It grows quickly, and is as treacherous as the swamp passages. The lampetramen are said to pare it back by grazing upon it, and in doing so maintain control over the approach to the city. Everyone must pay their fee, or risk being scuttled.”
I shook my head. “That’s… that’s madness. Why do the authorities of Port Lusander put up with that? Actually, scratch that question. Why by the Hanged God’s lackluster curiosity in all things carnal did they build Port Lusander behind such a maze in the first place?”
Iris shrugged. “It is simply the way things are. The lampetramen are part of Port Lusander just as the Family is part of Port Gloom.”
Yashara closed the telescope. “There’s no fighting them, I’d imagine. Give offense and they can just swim away and leave the town completely isolated. You could perhaps capture a dozen individuals, but if they rarely emerge from the water, even that would be a challenge.”
I rubbed the back of my head. “It just all seems completely impractical. Port Gloom was built where it stands because of the Snake Head and all the trade that runs up and down its length. But out here - what’s the point of a large city in the middle of a swamp behind a maze of coral that nobody can navigate without paying a toll?”
Iris smiled. “Life is not always logical, Kellik.”
“True,” said Cerys, “but certain economic laws are pretty inflexible. There has to be a reason Port Lusander was built here and thrives.”
Iris shrugged one shoulder. “You’ll have to ask the xanthan vine companies, I suppose.”
We all watched as Maestria was rowed out to the fish hut, and there entered the limestone - actually no, I realized, it would be built out of coral, wouldn’t it? The coral house. Ten minutes later she emerged, securing a tie around a leather folder, and with Jonas entered the jolly boat and returned to the Bonegwayne.
“All is in order,” she said briskly, climbing up the rope ladder and over the gunwale. She handed the folder off to Jonas and nodded to Samel, who ordered sailors to take up the hawser ropes that were coiled around the gunwale in readiness.
“They’re going to tow us in?” I asked. “They can handle a ship this size?”
“Won’t be just one lampetraman to a rope,” said Havatier, stepping up alongside us, one hand clutching his bandolier. “Each will be clasped by a dozen of their kind, so that over sixty or seventy of them will ease us through the maze.”
“So you’re talking to me again?” I asked.
“Making polite conversation, shall we say.” Havatier glanced up at the overcast skies with a troubled frown. “I’m going to have Samel unfurl at least the spinnaker. I’m of no use without any canvas to work on. Excuse me.”
Glistening, fleshy heads emerged from the choppy water, and I wondered how they could sense us without eyes. Did they taste the ship through the holes in those great conical heads? Some magical sixth sense?
Samel gave the command and the hawsers were tossed into the water, each rope as thick as my wrist, and then played out as the lampetramen took them up and dove below the surface. Soon all the mooring ropes extended in stiff diagonals into the water, and a lone lampetraman’s head emerged from the chop. To my surprise he lifted a pale, human-looking hand into the air and gave us a thumbs-up sign; it looked like he had a normal arm as well.
“Anchor aweigh!” shouted Maestria, and six sailors began to turn the great wheel at the stern of the ship, causing the chain to clunk rapidly as it was drawn up and out of the water.